If That Happy Dawn Should Ever Shine
by moonswirl
Summary: GLEEKATHON, DAY SIX HUNDRED: When young Quinn and Rachel became the Sunshine Girls, they had no idea how long they would last.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number seven...<strong>_

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><p><strong>DAY 600!<br>**_Another 100 under my belt, it never gets any less unbelievable!  
>Of course, like any and all big milestones, it goes with the Sunshine Girls,<br>and a new story arc on top of that! Hope you enjoy it, thanks so much for being there still!_

_While I've got you here (hopefully), I'm wondering if I can call on some of you to help me with something.  
>If you were here last October, when I reached my one-year anniversary of doing these stories, you might<br>recall what I did to celebrate it, which was to select my favorite stories from over that first year, and to write  
>either a sequel, prequel, or POV swap to it. Now as it is I've planned these stories up until mid-September, and<br>__the next time I go into planning mode will be in August or September. but I didn't want to wait until then to put  
>forward this idea. So last year, I did all the choosing all on my own, but this year I want to try something else.<br>If you want to put in your... well, I guess you can say your vote... it's going to take time, which is why I'm giving it._

_The idea would be this: to look at all the stories of year two - days 379 (November 4th 2010) to 693 (September 14th 2011)  
>(including those who will come in the next couple of months (the last cycle before the two-year anniversary cycle<br>won't be able to be counted, for obvious reasons that it'll be too close to call, I'll be back in university,  
>and won't have the luxury of time just as freely ;)) and select your 21 favorite ones, closingsending the list after the cut-off date.  
>Daunting, I realize, and if you can't go through that, don't worry about it, but if you can, if you want to,<br>please let me know, just so I know if I've got something viable, or if I've just officially gone off the deep end ;)_

_Right, enough babbling and rambling... On to the story! _

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><p><strong>"If That Happy Dawn Should Ever Shine"<br>Hailey & Hannah; Older Quinn and Rachel  
>Sunshine Girls #29 (previous: "The All-Tipsy Moonshine Girl") <strong>

She had been parked at that window almost from the moment she woke up that morning. Her father had suggested she would probably have slept at that window if they hadn't convinced her that her bed would be more comfortable. But she couldn't help it, and her parents and older sister understood why. They never liked to be apart, the two of them, and as best as they tried sometimes circumstances just couldn't be helped. One of them lived in Lima, permanently, while the other lived in Lima only for as long as her mother didn't have a part or a tour or something that would take her away long enough that she'd take the whole family with her…

"Mom!" Hailey cried out. "When's Aunt Rachel getting here?" When she got no answer, she climbed off the ledge of the window and stalked through the family room and into the kitchen until she found her. "Mom!" she repeated. "When's…" she paused when she saw her mother was on the phone, which Hailey immediately interpreted as… "Is that her? Are they coming?" she asked, dashing up to her mother, craning her neck up.

"… don't think she can wait much longer," Quinn stifled a laugh before looking down, patting her six-year-old daughter's blonde head. "They'll be coming up the driveway now," she tilted her head, and a second later the girl had dashed off.

She made it back to the door, already seeing the car pulling in before she'd reached the door knob and turned it, waiting until the car had stopped before running after it, like her father had taught her. She knew that in that car there was one person in particular she couldn't wait to see, and who couldn't wait to see her… They may not have shared blood, but as far as they were concerned they were sisters.

"Mom, the door is locked!" Hannah complained as she could see Hailey but she couldn't get out of the car herself.

"One thing at a time," Rachel promised, turning the key, which silenced the car. Turning around, she stretched her arm to undo the six-year-old's seatbelt before flipping the switch to unlock the back door. The moment the click was heard, Hannah was getting the door opened and leaping out. Rachel knew that before her feet even felt the ground for more than a half second, Hannah would be hugging Hailey and the two would run back in the house. "What, don't I get a hug?" Rachel called after them.

"I can take care of that, if you want," the voice drew her attention to the side, seeing Quinn just outside the door. Rachel gasped when she spotted her, making herself look so much like her daughter in the way she hurried out of the car and moved to embrace her friend.

"I insist!" her voice threatened to show how close she was to tears before she stepped back and looked down. "When did this happen?" she shook her head, pressing her hand to Quinn's belly. "Has it been that long?" she sounded genuinely shocked.

"It looks that way," Quinn beamed. "Few more weeks," she calculated.

"Oh, I'm so glad I'll be here for this. I wouldn't dream of missing it!"

"Speaking of which, where are the boys? And that includes your husband," she smirked.

"At my fathers'," Rachel revealed. "We were all supposed to be there, but something told me Hannah couldn't wait that long," she had that smile as she said this, the one Quinn knew very well, the one that came out when they would talk about their daughters, how bonded they were. It came hand in hand with knowing that, the moment they would head back inside Quinn's house, they would be treated to a blast from the past with a twist.

They liked to think this was how things would have turned out, if it wasn't for the incident with Sunny the glass turtle that had eventually led to their friendship being fractured, which had taken the Sunshine Girls with it. Those superheroes of happiness in red and in blue might have become even more powerful, as they learned to be discreet, for one thing. But those girls had grown, had become women, had become mothers, and from them there came a new generation to take up the mantle of Beams and Rays, the All-Mighty Sunshine Girls.

Rachel and Quinn were probably the only ones who could still manage to spot them when they were trying to be in hiding, 'old habits' maybe, but as mothers they would choose not to let on that they knew, leaving the girls to go about their business until they should decide that they wanted to reveal themselves. Quinn had shown Rachel the nursery for the new baby – another girl – before they'd gone down to sit out on the couch to talk. They barely managed to put in a couple of words each before Rachel spotted the girls in their capes, just at the door.

"Yes?" she asked, innocently. The girls shared a look and some whispers before they both nodded and moved to approach their mothers.

"Give it to them," Hannah insisted, seeing how Hailey held something to her chest and wouldn't move it yet. At the prompt though, she pulled her hands back to reveal a picture, which she held out to her mother and her aunt. The two of them smiled, looking at the picture, hit with memories.

"Why did you want to show us this one?" Quinn asked them both. Again, they 'consulted' with a look.

"Just curious," Hailey shrugged, and Hannah picked up the sentence.

"About the Sunshine Girls." Quinn looked to Rachel, smirking before looking back, as the girls leaned in. "We know it's okay to talk to you about this," Hannah whispered.

"Because you were Sunshine Girls, too," Hailey also whispered, getting the sentence back.

"Right, of course," Rachel spoke solemnly, as the girls climbed up on the couch and sat in between their mothers. "Okay, so what do you want to know?" The girls once again consulted, before Hannah took up the initiative to answer.

"About that," she spoke, while Hailey pointed at the picture. Now it was their mothers who shared a look, and one thing was clear.

"I better call home. This will take a while…"

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

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><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****


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